Isn't the ranking system accurate?

[mharky]

BEOC Sprint
Men's A Final, 1st Chris Smithard, 1319 points
Men's B Final, 1st Peter Hodkinson, 1327 points

[awk]

There's all sorts of inaccuracies/issues with the rankings list. For instance, I'm fairly certain the downward movement, whereby it was easier to score points a year ago than today, is still ongoing (although that's admittedly anecdotal). At the end of the day, as long as it's not being used for anything serious, it doesn't matter. It's when it gets taken seriously that real problems might start to occur.

[ianandmonika]

System doesn't seem to work. Moved up to M65 and running better but ranking points now well down on last year. Can't find any of top M65s from 2012 British Middle Champs who got any ranking points from that event, which seems funny.

[Spookster]

I think there's no doubt that peoples' scores are still slowly declining (and not because they're getting worse, necessarily). You can see that from the scores of us three:

Andrew (overall score hasn't declined yet, but you can see the trend in the individual scores)
Ian
Martin

I also think it's easier to score highly at urban and sprint races, than in "traditional" forest long/middle races (it's certainly true in my case - all six of my counting scores are now urban/sprint).

But despite its deficiencies, it's still "about right", so I don't think it justifies are large amount of effort/cost to try to develop something better. If there are quick fixes, then those could be done - but they have been.

[Rich R]

BEOC Sprint
Men's A Final, 1st Chris Smithard, 1319 points
Men's B Final, 1st Peter Hodkinson, 1327 points

Yep - Thanks for the points Mharky as your score was probably a farily big factor!

[greywolf]

BEOC Sprint
Men's A Final, 1st Chris Smithard, 1319 points
Men's B Final, 1st Peter Hodkinson, 1327 points

Do you think the winner of the A final should automatically score more points than the winner of the B final? What if Scotia had turned up, stuffed up in the heats and then stormed round the final? AFAICS Peter went round a marginally shorter course in a marginally shorter time: maybe he has got a few extra points, but I'd think 8 points as being within the margin of error of the calculations - it's never going to be perfectly precise - that's one of the reasons why the list uses the aggregate of best six scores.

There's all sorts of inaccuracies/issues with the rankings list. For instance, I'm fairly certain the downward movement, whereby it was easier to score points a year ago than today, is I'm pretty certain still ongoing (although that's admittedly anecdotal).

over the whole of the orienteering population, that's improbable, as the system is contiually rebased around an average score of 1000. However some groups, e.g. old men, were over-ranked initially as a consequence of the seeding method employed, and their scores are gradually settling down to a more reasonable level. (also, the overall population of the list changes gradually over time - if the new recruits i.e. M/W 16s are better than those quitting through old age/ infirmity then this will have an effect)

Moved up to M65 and running better but ranking points now well down on last year. Can't find any of top M65s from 2012 British Middle Champs who got any ranking points from that event, which seems funny.

You're getting older. what did you expect? And see comment above about about initial seeding.
Ebor website says: BMC M65 1 Lailey, 2 Gorvett, 3 Prowting
BOF rankings say: M65 1 Gorvett, 2 Lailey, 4 Prowting
what's the problem?

[graeme]

So two athletes of similar ability, having good runs, at similar mins/km. Despite comparing with fields of different quality, and no common runners, the ranking system rates their performance the same to within less than 1%.
Remember there are still people arguing for multiplying the points by arbitrary factors of up to 25% indeed the IOF list only just threw that nonsense out.
To answer your question, yes, within 1% is remarkably accurate. e.g. nobody expects the winning times to be anywhere near that accurate.

[Scott]

However some groups, e.g. old men, were over-ranked initially as a consequence of the seeding method employed, and their scores are gradually settling down to a more reasonable level.

And it works the other way as well - I don't think my orienteering has improved particularly over the last two years, but I reckon I'm now scoring about 50 points more for the same standard of run compared when compared with 2010.

[AAH]

I think the British Sprints finals results also have a bit of the following effect…

The spread of runner’s times in a given race depends, amongst other things, on the spread of ability of the runners (the spread of times you would expect them to take on average) and random chance (how well or badly they do on that particular day).

If you have a race with a wide spread of ability of runners, maybe such that on average the standard deviation of their times in a sprint race was 3 minutes for example, you would get a bit of on the day random variation – maybe the standard deviation would be 3’15 or something.

But if you have a very narrow spread of ability of runners (e.g. such that they would all be expected to finish within 10 seconds of each other, on average) the standard deviation of times taken would be dominated by random events, who has a good day, who goes which way round a flower bed etc. and the standard deviation of finish times will never be below, say, 30 seconds or something due to this on the random chance. So if you have a field of very narrow ability, the spread of finish times is always greater, due to random chance, than you would predict from their expected spread of finish time averaged over many races.

The final of this year’s British Sprints was probably the most highly selected event in the UK this year – to qualify, runners had to get within 30-60 seconds of the winner in the heats. The expected standard deviation of finish times would be low and indeed if the race was run 20 times the standard deviation of the runner’s average times would be low, but random chance meant there was always going to be a certain variation in finish times no matter how narrow the spread of the participants ability.

So it’s hard to get very good ranking points at events with a very narrow spread of ability of runner. Their results will usually be more spread out than would be predicted from their ranking, due to chance.

The ranking list would give more accurate rankings of the top runners if the straight line fit was weighted more towards fitting the times of the highest ranked runners in a race.

[Adrian]

BEOC Sprint
Men's A Final, 1st Chris Smithard, 1319 points
Men's B Final, 1st Peter Hodkinson, 1327 points

Do you think the winner of the A final should automatically score more points than the winner of the B final?

Well, yes. The B final is not an independent event.

Let's say the best time in the heats was 10 mins. If the cutoff for the A final was 11 minutes, then the winner of the B final should get about 90% of the ranking points of the winner of the A final.

[madmike]

[Well, yes. The B final is not an independent event.

That's true but the system ranks performance in races and the B Final was an independent race (in respect to A Final) albeit at the same event.

[andy]

Let's say the best time in the heats was 10 mins. If the cutoff for the A final was 11 minutes, then the winner of the B final should get about 90% of the ranking points of the winner of the A final.

this makes absolutely no sense
it's a separate race on a separate course, they should bear no relation to each other (what mike said!)

[Parkino]

Do you think the winner of the A final should automatically score more points than the winner of the B final?

Considered as entirely separate races, there's no issue, of course.

The issue comes when you consider them as part of one event, the British Sprint Championships. It doesn't feel right. I mean, if you qualify for the final, but finish last, haven't you finished above the guy who wins the B final. This overall placing may be immaterial for ranking scores, but you can see how it would 'rankle' ...

(In fact, this year, it's not immaterial because the results from the qualifying heats have yet to be published by BOF and thus a good run in the heats earns no ranking points whatsoever!)

[madmike]

[ This overall placing may be immaterial for ranking scores, but you can see how it would 'rankle' ...

Agree it could rankle; however, I regret to say there is no may be about it

[graeme]

– to qualify, runners had to get within 30-60 seconds of the winner in the heats.

Nope: the FA1 course included M16, 35 and 40.

If you qualify for the final, but finish last

... you get more points for your good run than your bad run, just like the guy who won the B final. Why is that a problem?

Competition Rules C: British Sprint Distance
3.5.2 For ranking purposes the heats and finals should be considered as separate events.

(and they haven't even done the final points correctly, but that's another issue)